Overwhelmed by enemy mages and all out of counterspells? Here are five other clever ways to dodge unhelpful magic.
Play D&D long enough and you’ll eventually run into an encounter that should be a cakewalk. Maybe it’s just a band of goblins. Or maybe it’s just a couple of bandits in the woods. But then… one of them starts casting spells. Suddenly an encounter that might have been trivial gets weird. And possibly dangerous. That’s what magic does in D&D; it puts in danger and complexity in equal measure. A good rule of thumb is: the more wizards, the more dangerous it gets.
Fortunately, there are some techniques that you can use to counter spellcasting as early as 1st level if you’re prepared. You won’t need counterspell to counter spells when you use these tactics.
Fog Cloud
This 1st level spell does so much work in the game. It might not seem like it does anything because it grants both advantage and disadvantage to anyone attacking into or out of the cloud. But! This simple little 1st level spell will shut down targeted spellcasting because it makes your enemies unable to see you. And so many of the more powerful spells target a “creature you can see.” If they can’t see you, they can’t target you with Hold Person or Magic Missile or whatever they’re casting.
Sure, technically you can’t see them either, but the advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out, so it’s like they’re standing in plain view, only they can’t target you with certain spells.
Conditional Success
Breaking the line of sight might prevent some spells, but what if the enemy has area of effect spells? Or the kind of magic attack that isn’t a spell but is still magic anyway? In that case you might want to turn to the Conditions section of the PHB.
You’ll want to find status effects, basically, that make it impossible for your enemy to take an action. If you can inflict Stunned or Incapacitated or even just Charmed you can prevent the enemy from casting a spell. At least on you. And that’s like a proactive counterspell.
Silence
This one takes a 2nd level spell slot, but, the Silence spell is a great way to shut down something like 80% of the spells in D&D. Most spells require a verbal component, and if you can cast Silence on an enemy spellcaster and keep them in the area, either by creating difficult terrain or by grappling the now magic-less spellcaster, then they will have very few tricks indeed to throw at you.
Stealing Focus (or Components)
Spellcasters have to play by the rules. And in D&D that means that they either need a holy symbol, arcane focus, or a pouch full of spell components. If you can use something like sleight of hand or a disarming strike that causes enemies to drop something they’re holding, you stand a good chance of being able to take away the thing that lets them cast spells. At least the spells that require Material components–which is less than the Verbal ones, but still that cuts off many of the most powerful spells out there.
Sphere of Annihilation
When all else fails, just shove ’em into a sphere of annihilation–because nothing shuts down a wizard-like them not existing anymore.
Happy Adventuring!
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